COMMENTARY
By Gordon Hahn
Despite claims that nothing is changing in Russia and, more specifically, that Russian president Dmitry Medvedev’s anti-corruption drive is going nowhere, the fact is that the campaign is picking up steam and has a chance of making a real dent in Russia’s massive, endemic corruption. Let’s begin with the least impressive but by no means insignificant of the recent steps. In his May press conference at Skolkovo Medvedev called for a relaxation of the technical inspection of automobiles during the registration process; something that would reduce GIBDD presonnel’s opportunities for demanding bribes. By the end of the month, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had prepared a government resolution waiving the requirement for new automobiles to be inspected upon their initial registration or during their first year on the road (Aleksandra Smarina, “Voyazh Medvedeva na ammita utonul v potoke informatsi o Putine,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 27 May 2011). This deprives the auto inspection department of a key opportunity for soliciting bribes; another step in Medvedev’s anti-corruption drive.
More importantly, the anti-corruption fight is generating a purge of high-ranking officials across the board, from the MVD, undergoing its own internal reforms, to the prosecutor’s office to the military-industrial complex to the military. Thousands of MVD personnel are going through an attestation or re-certification for corruption and incompetency, leading to the removal from office of numerous high-ranking MVD generals. In January Deputy Chief of the Moscow MVD’s Main Administration Vladimir Chugunov was fired (“Medvedev uvolil nachal’nika kadrovogo upravleniya GUVD Moskvy,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 26 January 2011). The terrorist suicide bombing at Domodedovo Airport allowed Medvedev to dismiss from office four top MVD officials, including Maj. Gen. Andrei Alexeyev, head of the transport police for much of western Russia, including Moscow, the chief of the transport police division at Domodedovo Airport and two other MVD officers (Jim Heintz, “Russian president fires police chief after bombing,” Associated Press , 26 January 11).
Although the MVD said they were not fired for corruption, the following were released in late March: General-Major and deputy head of an MVD directorate in Sverdlovsk region Viktor Berdnikov, General-Major and head of Barnaul MVD legal institute Nikolai Mikhailov, General-Major Yakov Stakhov from Sakha in Yakutia, General-Major Boris Timonchenko from Kurgansk and General-Lieutenant Oleg Khotin from Voronezh. They have been joined by Kursk Oblast’s MVD chief Major General Viktor Bulushev, Perm police chief General-Lieutenant Yury Gorlov, Khanty-Mansiisk Autonomous Okrug MVD boss Nikolai Gudozhnikov, General-Major Anatoly Zhuravlev from Kalmykiya, and General-Major Nikolai Larkov from Mordoviya (Tom Washington, “Top cops axed by Medvedev,” Moscow News, 1 April 1, 2011). In May, the chief of the Main Administration of the MVD for the Far East Federal District Maj. Gen Felix P. Vasilkov and chief of the Transport Administration of the MVD for Urals Federal District Maj. Gen. Vasilii N. Volkov were fired (“Kadrovyie izmeneniya v sisteme MVD – Prezident podpisal ukaz ‘Ob osbozhdenii ot dolzhnosti sotrudnikov organov vnutrennykh sil Rossiiskoi Federatsii’,” Kremlin.ru, 11 May 2011). These are all high-ranking MVD generals.
All in all, 119 of Russia's 335 most powerful police chiefs have already failed their attestation and were released from work between January to May 20th (Natalya Krainova, “A Third of Top Police Chiefs Fired,” Moscow Times, 31 May 2011). Plus, at least 94 municipal police chiefs have failed the vetting and been released from work. Not all, but very likely most were relieved because of corruption issues. There were “serious problems” with some of those who were dismissed, and several owned real estate abroad, according to MVD chief Ruslan Nurgaliyev. The MVD’s tax crime divisions have seen the largest purge, with 25 percent of officers failing attestation. The tax police are known for high levels of graft and for servicing corrupt and criminal businesses seeking to wrest businesses from competitors (Natalya Krainova, “Top Cop Says 94 Police Chiefs Fired as Part of 'Hard' Reform,” Moscow Times, 19 May 2011).
Not surprisingly, the MVD’s attestation process is moving more slowly than it might due to Russia’s eternal bureaucratic resistance. In May, Medvedev had to extend the deadline for its completion from 1 June 2011 to 1 August 2011 (“Dmitrii Medvedev podpisal Ukaz ‘O vnesenii izmenenii v Ukaz Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii ot 1 marta 2011g. No. 251 “O vneocherednoi attestatsii sotrudnikov organov vnutrennykh del Rossisskoi Federatsii”,” Kremlin.ru, 12 May 2011). In February, MVD chief Nurgaliev sought to pre-empt Medvedev in establishing a new departmental structure and staff limitations that would have increased, rather than decreased the number of MVD central departments and personnel as medvedev has ordered, but the Kremlin stepped in and forced Nurgaliev to repeal his order (“Reformennyi bred MVD,” Moskovskii komsomolets, 13 February 20011). In March Medvedev issued a series of his own decrees establishing those new parameters, cutting the number of MVD departments, and codifying full presidential control over the MVD’s structure and staffing (Mikhail Falaleev, “Politsiyu ozadachili,” Rossiiskaya gazeta, 2 March 2011). Internal discussion among police officers and officials confirms that the attestation has forced at least a temporary freeze on corrupt and criminal activity usually engaged in by some MVD personnel (see Andrei Gridasov, “A moral interlude: Russian police suspend corruption,” Open Democracy, 1 April 2011).
Moving beyond the MVD, other siloviki departments are feeling Medvedev’s anti-corruption policies. After officials in the General Prosecutor’s Moscow Oblast branch were caught up in a scandal earlier this year showing they were engaged in a protection racket for underground gambling casinos, a series of officials were fired and a criminal investigation was opened. In an effort to save his job and address the scandal Russian Prosecutor General Yurii Chaika then ordered an attestation of all personnel in Moscow Oblast (Yan Gordeev, “Podmoskovskaya prokuratura zaimetsya kadrovym samoochisheniem,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 27 May 2011). This is likely to lead to more prosecutors being fired. In addition, a “high ranking official” of the central MVD’s ‘K’ administration Farit Temirgamiev and his aide Mikhail Kulikov were arrested last week for bribery solicitation in connection with the same casino kickback scandal (“Basmanskii sud Moskvy arestoval vysokopostavlennogo sotrudnika Upravleniya ‘K’ MVD Rossii Farita Temirgalieva,” Ekho Moskvy, 9 June 2011.).
On 4 June the state exercised unprecedented glasnost on the corruption issue when Gazprom-Media's NTV program ‘Russkiye Sensatsii’ broadcast a 50-minute documentary about high-profile corruption cases involving senior Russian officials, including the casino kickback case, the Sergei Magnitsky case, Moscow tax officials, and a high-ranking St. Petersburg law enforcement official (“Russian TV shows documentary exposing corruption among senior officials,” BBC Monitoring, 4 June 2011 citing NTV Mir, 4 June 2011). Such a broadcast almost certainly could not air without approval from the Kremlin.
A series of officials in the Russian military-industrial complex and military proper have recently been fired for failing to deliver on 2010’s military procurement plan financed by the government. Director-General of OAO Izhevsk Machines Plant (Izhmash) Vladimir Gordetskiy, Federal State Unitary Enterprise (FGUP) Electrical Engineering Research Institute Director Arkadii Khokhlovich, Deputy Head of the Armed Forces’ Main Directorate Maj-Gen I.I. Vaganov, Head of the Aviation Equipment and Arms Development and Procurement Directorate Col. I.V. Krylov, and Deputy Commander-in-Chief for Armaments of the Russian Navy Vice Admiral N. K. Borisov” among others were dismissed from their posts (“Medvedev Dismisses Defense Ministry, Industry Officials for Arms Order Failures,” Interfax, 17 May 2011). It is very likely that much of this failure is the result of embezzlement of funds or equipment.
Non-siloviki officials are falling under the anti-corruption push as well. Recently, the Moscow Oblast Main Investigations Administration indicted the deputy mayor of the city of Noginsk in Moscow Oblast’ Dmitrii Golubtsov for soliciting bribes from a business in return for convening a public hearing on city planning. (Gordeev, “Podmoskovskaya prokuratura zaimetsya kadrovym samoochisheniem”). In May, the head of the Northwest Territorial Administration of the Federal Agency for the Fishing Industy was arrested in St. Petersburg for trying to see the position of chief of the agency’s State Control, Monitoring. and Fish Preservation Department in Nizhnii Novgorod for R5 million (“Mgnovennyie soobsheniya,” Nezavisimaya gazeta, 27 May 2011).
Finally, on May 25th Russia signed the anti-bribery convention at the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. This was described by Edward Verona, president and CEO of the U.S.-Russia Business Council, and Brook Horowitz, executive director of the International Business Leaders Forum in Russia, a business association working with companies to promote responsible business practices, as “an important milestone in the country's fight against corruption.” Verona and Horowitz note that while the anti-corruption drive faces “daunting” challenges, there are “successes” of late. The Russian arbitration courts’ creation of an Internet database of court proceedings and interactive programs giving interested parties the ability to follow the course of adjudications and increasing transparency and improved training of commercial court judges, which has “greatly increased their skill and professionalism,” “belie those critics who say Russia has done nothing to improve the quality of justice in recent years” (Edward Verona and Brook Horowitz, “Praise for Anti-Graft Drive,” Moscow Times, 8 June 2011). Again, you will not read about any of the above in the U.S. mainstream media.
All this progress aside, the only way to put an end to such massive corruption is to fully separate business from government and aggressively pursue Medvedev’s proposed privatization policy. Moreover, most U.S. observers will not be sufficiently impressed by Russian anti-corruption issues unless the Russian legal system can bring to justice all those responsible for the death in prison of Sergei Magnitskii, perpetrated to help cover up massive MVD corruption in an attempt to seize property from William Browder’s Hermitage Capital. Similarly, any indictment of corruption whistleblower Aleksei Navalny for alleged criminal acivity will further erode trust not only of foreign governments but badly needed foreign investors as well. Medvedev’s hollowing out of the MVD and other corrupt law enforcement organs could pave the way for such pivotal steps.
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